It’s been rumored that Disney was changing FastPass service on April 10th allowing guests to choose their FastPass times at the time of booking as well as the ability to add FastPasses via the mobile app. Some major and helpful updates:

The ability to choose the time of your FastPass from the start (you want Seven Dwarfs Mine Train but don’t see a time earlier in the day like you were hoping. You don’t have to go through the entire process to see available times which makes this component a bit faster)

The ability to choose as little as one or as many as 3 FastPasses. For people that don’t like some of the attractions available in the 2 theme parks (Epcot and Hollywood Studios) that have tiered FastPasses, you can skip making selections you don’t want.

Scheduling FastPasses when park hopping – while this functionality is still not available prior to your arrival. Once all of your pre-scheduled FastPasses are used or time has passed, you can use the app to schedule FastPass in ANY of the 4 theme parks. That means you can be on the monorail from Epcot to Magic Kingdom and scheduling a FastPass before you even walk into the park. SUPER helpful!

What I don’t love about the changes:

It makes scheduling FastPass a little bit slower as you can only choose one at a time (Something that normally takes me 10-12 minutes took me 17 today). Some of that was because I was trying to take some screen captured of the experience and trying to navigate the new system. It’s not a huge deal in time, but it’s one thing I miss about the old system.

The system is not “smart” enough to not provide you times that don’t overlap an existing FastPass so you have to remember the time you previously grabbed or it will take more time.

It will take more morning times away from the savvy people with strategy to pull FastPasses in the AM to add more later. It also provides morning times as a first option so they will now be going a little bit faster making the higher value options like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Toy Story Mania a little less available in the morning.

Overall it’s a nice improvement of the system. Hopefully some of the bugs will get worked out over the next few updates of the workflow to get a better overall user experience. The experience on the My Disney Experience app now looks nearly identical to the web site which makes for a familiar user experience from start to finish (and a lot less clicks to make changes on the app which is a welcomed change). If you’d like to see the changes to the app, you will need to update your current version of My Disney Experience.

So what does the new system look like? A few photos:

One of your first screens in the new FastPass selection system. – choosing the date you want to select your FastPasses for!

Once you select your day, hours for each of the 4 theme parks will pop up to show you park hours, extra magic hours, or any special events for the day in question.

Once your park is selected, available times for each attraction pops up. It looks very similar to the dining options. There are some buttons at the top to allow you to select morning, afternoon, evening, or drop down to find a specific time.

Once you choose a time for your first experience, you will get a confirmation screen. You then have the option to choose another experience (if you’ve only chosen 1 or 2) or to make a selection for a different day.

As a reminder, you can still choose up to 3 experiences each day but you are now not required to choose 3. This makes the experience a little easier for me (a chronic FastPass “waster” in parks like Hollywood Studios because I’m not a thrill rider). I can just choose Toy Story Mania and MAYBE one of the shows for my 3 year old and then we can hop over to Epcot or back to Magic Kingdom to ride it’s a small world over and over!

I’d expect to see less availability inside the parks for FastPasses as the day goes on or you may find yourself waiting a longer time to grab an additional FastPass. As a reminder, with anything new, please be patient! It looks like the initial roll out is working well from my experience today, but there’s always hiccups in the system. This system is also new to cast members, so please be patient with them as well as they learn the new experience!

If you would like help planning your next Disney World vacation, I’d love to be a part of the process. Please feel free to contact me anytime for a free quote. The benefits to using an authorized Disney vacation planner include saving time before and during your vacation with itinerary planning which can help save you hours of standing in line each day. Plus you won’t have to watch for available discounts, research resorts, wake up early for dining reservations, or stay up late for FastPasses. The best part about using a travel planner instead of planning yourself? It’s totally FREE! Plus I’ll take away some of the stress and confusion of planning a Disney vacation (especially if it’s your first one!)It’s also a worry free vacation opportunity. I’ll walk through through all of the steps to the process with a few little insider tips along the way! If you already have your vacation planned and are interested in transferring your vacation, ask me how!